Fuck Microsoft.

Bro, this has been me this whole year. Both PS and Xbox have just been doing boneheaded move after boneheaded move that I hate. I've already cancelled my PS+ membership and I'll be letting my GamePass membership lapse once it runs out in October. seriously contemplating just getting rid of all my PS consoles and games as well but it feels like such a huge hassle to sell hundreds of physical games and several consoles.

Yeah, PC + Switch feels like my future.

Give your PS consoles and games to your nephew or something, Lol.

I really would like to know what happened from like 2020 till now. Their strategy has clearly changed.

My personal theory is that they simply made so many studio purchases when gaming was hot. Then a combination of the gaming industry taking a down turn and their console sales cratering just became a perfect storm. It's the only thing that makes sense for how fast they are moving and changing now.

That HFR song is breaking my heart, Lol.

It was such a beautiful and amazingly fun game, a funny title, the characters were awesome, the ending was wholesome and I really wanted a Hi-Fi Rush 2, I wanted a Hi-Fi Rush TV Show, even John Johanas spoke about making one, it would have been an awesome TV Show with that cast of characters, every single part of HFR was them putting 100% into it, a team randomly got together and wanted to make a special project that they've never done before, nobody having experience with this type of game before and they delivered on everything despite all odds and gave Tango their best rated game ever.

And Microsoft spits in their face.

No fucking respect for the creative medium or creatives.

Sell the Hi-Fi Rush IP to Nintendo. You don't deserve it.

I wish I could get into PC gaming. The way games run is just amazing. Unfortunately it comes with it's own problems. The amount of time I've wasted troubleshooting issues on PC just isn't worth it. It doesn't happen often but on console it never happens. Xbox controller disconnecting randomly was the final straw for me. After that I shut it all down and sold off everything on Ebay.

The more I think about it the more irrationally angry I'm getting, are they fucking serious?

I even downloaded this song into my phone shortly after HFR, Lol.

Phil, do the right thing and sell the IP to someone who cares, preferably to wherever John goes, even better, give the IP to John for free like you did with Press Play employees, it's John's IP and you clearly don't give a fuck about it, give him the opportunity to at least try to keep it alive.

PC gaming is great! Most will typically get a pre-built gaming PC to avoid the headaches of building your own. Which is fair. But for me, building a PC is half the fun. I know many that switched from console gaming to PC gaming, but opted to get pre-builts, and they really haven't had any issues. 

They might let their graphics driver get too out of date, but once updated, everything goes back to normal. 

#GiveHiFiRushIPToJohn

He fucking deserves it. This man didn't even go to college/university to be a game developer, he one day decided he wanted to work in gaming, he took a chance and he moved to Japan, he joined Tango Gameworks and the first project he worked on was Evil Within 1, the second project he ever worked on was Evil Within 2 as a goddamn director that quickly and he released a great title.

Then his 3rd ever title that he has ever worked on, Hi-Fi Rush, his 2nd only director position on a game and he ends up making Tango's highest rated title ever, lets say that again, Tango created by the legendary Mikami and John is the one who produces the highest rated title for them, not Mikami. With a group of developers who have never worked on a game like this before.

What the fuck? Seriously? John is the peak example of a fresh "new" developer entering the industry, what the future faces of the industry will be, someone who may go on to be a legendary director in the industry, this kid fucking "beat" Mikami and joined the industry purely out of passion and this is how you treat him?

God I wouldn't blame John if he leaves this shithole industry.

Dumb idiots thinking COVID boost would hold then gaming taking a plunge when people started actually going outside again (shocking), console sales being stagnant, budgets ballooning and the industry being stagnant overall, add in capitalism and the constant need for growth no matter what, it's not good enough to make 5% profit, you have to make 5% profit, it has to be 10%, then it's not good enough to make 10% profit, it has to be 15%, then it's not good enough to make 15% profit, it has to be 20%, etc.

ABK likely accelerated things, it put MS Gaming alongside Windows, that probably for once changed Xbox from being a thing which the CEO may have supported casually but Microsoft at large mostly ignored as some unwanted child to then the shareholders and financial executives looking more closely at Xbox, they probably saw ABK's profit margins of 30-40% and asked the question "Why isn't XGS/Zenimax at that?" and now they'll push for profit chasing at the cost of everything else, there's no room for creative experiments because they don't have a 30-40% profit margin.